Category: long story short

Salon has this Associated Press wire story in which Pakistani President Musharraf expresses doubt that bin Laden did the planning for the attack on the United States, without offering an alternative culprit.

Isn’t it about time those involved in the latest Arab-Israeli war admit that peace in the region is – at this present time – impossible? Everyone always says they want peace (along with love and understanding), but I think more progress could be made with more realistic goals. Instead of …

Puzzled by the red-meat anarcho-libertarian bent to so much commentary and punditry in the blogosphere? Looking for some balancing views from the left end of the spectrum? One source you might check is The Lefty Directory. Brian Linse is casting a broad net and a loose definition of the Left to provide a diversity of…

Yahoo! News has this AP Story: Bush Admits Tax Haven Problem. So I guess this means Republicans are starting to feel uncomfortable defending tax havens (their old line was that it was reasonable given the unfair taxes corporations are forced to pay). I wonder if Yahoo! deliberately wrote the headline to make it sound as…

It appears that ol’ undisclosed location isn’t as much of an asset to his administration as he was deemed to be before the Enron “nonstory” and subsequent business scandals broke, according to this Chicago Tribune story. Will Cheney be dropped from the ticket in 2004? Will health reasons be cited?

Roll Call rounds up the latest fear-driven ass-covering from both Republicans and Democrats in Washington as Enron revelations continue to emerge. As Robert Graves wrote in Cladius the God, “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud seep out.” Among the latest, more unreported Enron contacts with Administration late last year: Most troubling for…

When will we find out just exactly who participated in all those off-the-books partnerships at the Crooked E Ranch? This WaPo article doesn’t reassure me that that info will be seeing the light of day anytime soon.

FBI Priorities Ass-Backwards Verbatim, from the letters page of the S.F. Chronicle: Editor — Al Qaeda has the upper hand in the war against terror because the security agencies responsible for protecting us act like a bunch of sissies. Case in point: I was recently hired for an FBI counter-terrorism position based on my ability…

Bill Moyers Defends Himself with Class Read this sober rebuttal to a smear piece about Moyer’s “NOW” series for PBS some pissant wrote for the Weekly Standard. An excerpt: Periodically for twenty years now the right-wing complex in Washington has come after me in order to get at PBS (always – surprise, surprise! – just…

MZ just sent me this link as a reminder of The Onion‘s soothsaying skills: Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’.

What’s Afghan for My Lai? The Times Online (of London) reports a possible US coverup of the cause of the wedding-party bombing near the village of Kakarak, Afghanistan.

Sause for the Goose? Salon (requires subscription) wonders if Democrats will turn Harken into the same kind of witchhunt Whitewater became. Personally, I think this is a mistake. Remember, Clinton was reelected. The hounding that led to his impeachment hampered him but it never gave his political enemies any satisfaction. Why not beat Bush fair…

Civil-Sevice Reform as Trojan Horse? Joshua Micah Marshall explains the problem with the Republican position on the new Department of Homeland Security’s need for “managerial flexibility.” Reversing the issue highlights the matter by reversing whose ox is gored (no pun intended). What I want to know is why no one is discussing the whistleblower exemption?…

Bush Impeachment Countdown This new blog does not believe in sparing the rod when scourging the president. Didn’t realize that Bush got 100% of the black vote? There has been comment recently in punditocracy to the effect that Bush is concerned to improve his standing amongst African American voters. Bush Impeachment Countdown cannot understand this…

Keeping the Record Straight Not exonerated, not cleared, didn’t say “there was no case.” In fact, the SEC said Bush Violated Security Laws Four Times.

What Part of “Right to Assemble” Don’t You Understand? NC Indymedia reports on an encounter between peaceful protesters and police. An excerpt: “Why can we not proceed on this open public street that you are allowing others to travel?” “I was instructed to stop you from going past this point.” “I understand that those are…

CounterPunch Counters Myths About Islam Since 911, a lot of disinformation and inflammatory ideas have been spread about Islam. This Primer by Gary Leupp attempts to set the record straight.

Bush Timeline Gotta beat this obsession with the CEO, er, President. There’s more to media than this one story. Still, Semi Truths offers this cogent timeline.

Ex-Dictator Broke, Living With Mom (washingtonpost.com)

The Economist Worries about W. The conservative (but not insane) Economist is concerned about “the disappearing presidency”: First, politics is about momentum, and for the moment Mr. Bush is rolling downhill.